The Sexiest Man Alive (8 page)

Juju looked outraged. “I’ve been spending a fortune on expensive perfume and stupid men just want me to smell like my mom’s kitchen?”

“You know the old expression,” Magenta said. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Turns out that the same is true for other parts of the male anatomy, too.”

Ben edged over the speed limit on the drive back. It was a seven-hour drive to Milwaukee and he was worried that the ice in the chest would melt. Half a dozen black bass, caught shortly after dawn, were packed in the chest, all filleted, deboned, and wrapped in aluminum foil. There were frozen French fries, too, purchased at a convenience store along the highway. He’d go directly to Mazie’s place, he decided. She’d know how to roll the fish in cornmeal and fry them up in a little oil, while the fries crisped up in the oven.

Fish and fries and the Heineken Mazie always kept in her fridge for him—perfect! While they ate, he’d tell Mazie about his fishing expedition and then the evening would end in Mazie’s bed. The thought left his mouth dry and his heart racing. It had been way too long.

Maybe he ought to phone her and let her know he was coming. He quickly dismissed the thought. Mazie would be home. She was always home on Saturday nights. They had an unspoken agreement about Saturday nights.

It had been a week now since that stupid fight in the rain. The details had blurred, and now the whole thing seemed pretty funny. Mazie had yelled something about never wanting to see him again, but she’d just been blowing off steam. She’d be over it by now, happy to see him again and delighted with the fish.

Traffic slowed, then stopped for an accident on the interstate. Getting through the bottleneck took over an hour and it was later than he’d planned by the time Ben pulled up in front of Mazie’s place. He hoped she hadn’t already had dinner. He got out, checked the fish—they were okay, even though the ice was melting—and hauled the chest to Mazie’s door. He rang the bell, surprised to find that his palms were sweating and his heart was beating fast, as though he were about to meet a woman for the first time.

“Come in,” she yelled. It was something that bugged him. She was way too trusting. A single woman keeping her door unlocked was just inviting trouble. One of these days he’d buy her a top-quality dead bolt, instead of the flimsy chain she now used. He let himself into her flat, through the foyer, into the living room.

It was an efficiency, just a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living room that doubled as her
bedroom. Still, it looked terrific, despite Mazie’s skimpy budget. He inhaled. Her place smelled like fresh paint—one of his favorite smells, and—he sniffed again—like pumpkin pie. Had she been baking? Maybe she’d made pie for him. He smiled in anticipation.

He could hear Mazie clattering around in her bathroom, her bottles and beauty aids clinking against the sink. “Ready in a sec,” she warbled, ducking out of the bathroom with a curling iron wrapped around a lock of hair, “if I can get this stupid hair to—”

She broke off abruptly, staring at Ben in obvious surprise.

He took her in, and all his breath seemed to whoosh out of him. He’d forgotten how pretty she was. She was flushed from hurrying and hadn’t finished putting on her makeup; her lips were still their natural, un-lipsticked pink. Her blue eyes were enormous in a face that looked thinner. And her hair—

“What did you do to your hair?” Ben asked.

Yeah—her hair was definitely shorter. He preferred long hair on women, but the chin-length cut looked amazing on Mazie. She was wearing a red dress in some kind of silky material that wrapped around the front and tied at the waist. It revealed a hint of cleavage and a lot of leg.

She’d known he was coming and dressed up for him. She’d just been faking the surprised look. She looked ravishing, and he wanted to be her ravisher. A jolt of pure, unadulterated lust shot through him, leaving him hot, hard, and ready for action. He let the ice chest crash to the floor and moved toward Mazie, wanting to take her in his arms, feel her lips on his, run his hands along her sweet flesh—

Mazie jerked up the curling iron and pointed it at him as though she was about to fire off a warning shot. Ben stopped in his tracks, his radar picking up subtle signals. This did not appear to be a woman in want of ravishing, a woman ready to welcome home the conquering hero of a lake full of bass.

She wrinkled her nose. “You smell fishy.”

“That’s the cooler,” he said. “I brought you some fish.”

He wanted to punch himself.
I brought you some fish
. How lame was that? “I was up north,” he explained. “Lake Namakagon. Doing some fishing.”

“Fishing,” she repeated.

Heat prickled across Ben’s face. Maybe he ought to have phoned her. Maybe he ought to have changed before showing up here. He was wearing a sweaty porkpie hat studded with fishing
lures, a flannel shirt with ripped-off sleeves, a grungy T-shirt, pants spattered with fish guts, and tennis shoes he’d intended to throw out ten years ago. And she was right, he thought, furtively sniffing himself. He
did
smell like fish.

“Check this out, Mazie—half a dozen good-sized bass fillets in here. For
you
.” Wrenching open the chest, he snatched up one of the fillets and held it up for her to admire.

She eyed the fish as though it was a bloody, headless mole a cat had dragged in. “You brought me a mess of dead fish. Is that supposed to be symbolic?”

“Come on, Mazie—you love fish. We can fry them up. You know—with cornmeal and a little olive oil.” It was the wrong thing to say—he knew it the minute he’d uttered it, and yet his mouth acted as a shovel, digging him deeper and deeper into the dirt. “And you probably have tartar sauce, right? Because if you don’t, I can run down to the store and get some.”

“How totally unselfish of you. But I already had dinner,” she said coldly.

“Oh. Uhh … I guess I should have phoned.” But the scene had been so clear in Ben’s mind: him, Mazie, fish fry, sex. Why was Mazie being so unreasonable? What had gotten into her?”

“Why are you all dressed up?” Ben asked. “Wait—was there a wedding we were supposed to go to?”

Mazie set down the curling iron and picked up a pair of earrings. She tilted her head in that graceful way women have when they’re jabbing earrings into their lobes. Ben wanted to do it for her: brush the hair off her neck and nuzzle the deliciously soft skin. He loved Mazie’s earlobes—small and perfectly shaped, unlike his own radar dishes. He suddenly felt as big and gawky and unwieldy as he had in high school, when the cute girls wouldn’t even say hi to him.

“I’m dressed up because I’m going out,” Mazie said.

“Out?” Ben felt the floor shift beneath his feet. “Out where?”

She stared at him as though he was a newcomer to the English language. “
Out
out.”

“You mean like on a date?” Icy tentacles wriggled around in his stomach. “You’re seeing someone?”

“No, I’m just going out.”

“Dressed like that? With a short skirt and your boobs showing?” He jammed his hands in his pockets. Mistake—there was a fishhook in there. It jabbed his forefinger, stinging like crazy.

“You never objected to my boobs showing before.”

He sucked on his stinging finger. “Because they were for me, not every Tom, Dick, and Harry in a bar.”

“It’s no longer your business whether my boobs hang out. We broke up, remember?”

“What are you talking about?” Oh, Christ, was this payback for those women in that restaurant?

“You don’t even remember, do you?”

She was getting mad. Good; anger he could deal with.

“Yeah, I remember. ‘Never darken my doorstep again, you vile Canadian brute!’ ” He made his voice high and prissy-sounding. It was
funny
. Except—funnily enough—it didn’t get a laugh from Mazie, who didn’t seem to appreciate his comic genius.

“Your ice chest is leaking on my floor,” Mazie pointed out.

Which was completely beside the point and just more evidence of Mazie’s female inability to use reason and logic, Ben thought. It would serve her right if he took his fish and left.

Outside a car horn honked. “I’ve got to go.” Mazie suddenly got all flustered, flitting around the room, picking something up from a table and stuffing it in her purse.

“What’s that?” Before she could stop him, Ben snatched the thing out of her purse. He studied it, puzzled. It looked like a T-shirt wadded up in a plastic bag.

“Keep your paws off my purse,” Mazie snapped, grabbing the package back. She hurriedly tossed it into the steamer trunk she called a handbag and scurried out the door.

Ben couldn’t help admiring the rear view as Mazie left, her shoulders set in high dudgeon. Yeah, she was definitely mad at him. She got in the yellow bumper car that was Juju’s MINI Coop and they took off. Not some guy then—just Mazie and Juju, out for a night on the town. But maybe that was worse. Juju Danda was hell on wheels, and Mazie Maguire didn’t have the sense to come in out of the rain. By herself, each woman was scary; combined, they were a recipe for mayhem.

They didn’t know it yet, but they were going to have a bodyguard.

Abandoning the ice chest in the middle of Mazie’s living room, Ben hurried to his car, made an illegal U-turn, and followed them, glad that Juju’s car was so bright it practically glowed in the dark.

“Welcome to Phero-mates, everyone! I’m Kandace McHutchins, your Phero-mate emcee for tonight!” The woman at the microphone, wearing a sequined halter dress and a smile that outdazzled the chandeliers, exhibited a level of enthusiasm that would have made a
Reader’s Digest
Sweepstakes winner seem apathetic.

“Is everyone ready to find your Phero-mate?” Kandace squealed, and a few audience members cheered halfheartedly. Most of them seemed embarrassed to be here, as though their name tags read:
I’M A BIG LOSER WHO CAN’T GET A DATE THE NORMAL WAY SO I HAVE TO LET WEIRDOS SNIFF MY UNDERWEAR
.

The event was being held in the ballroom of the downtown Hilton Hotel. There must have been around a hundred people there, Mazie guessed; they were milling around guzzling cheap wine and nibbling wilted appetizers. The air reeked of scented candles, underlaid by the odor of unwashed T-shirts, because even double plastic Baggies could not contain the aromas of three nights’ worth of sleep sweat. The T-shirts were arranged on long tables, women’s in transparent pink bags; men’s in blue bags, each bag numbered. The noise level was high, with lots of nervous chatter and strained-sounding laughter. Women outnumbered men about two to one, which Juju said was normal for dating events. It reminded Mazie of a middle school Christmas concert, where all the girls glitzed up, wearing their best dresses, while the boys looked as though they’d RipStiked to the event directly from the skate park.

Juju, who believed that
subtle
was a waste of time where men were concerned—like sprinkling tarragon on your dog’s kibble—was wearing a one-shouldered satin cocktail dress in a yellow that was edging up into the neon green of construction crew vests. She’d accessorized with chandelier earrings, a tinkling wrist full of bracelets, and transparent high-heeled sandals that Imelda Marcos would have killed for. Mazie envied Juju her ability to look fabulous in the most outlandish colors, whereas she felt like a tart if her lipstick was too red.

“They say love is blind,” Kandace went on in her headache-inducing chirrup, “but does love smell?”

“Love smells, but marriage stinks,” called a guy in the audience, causing a ripple of
nervous titters.

“Every human being exudes his or her own unique pheromones—sex-attracting chemical signals,” Kandace babbled on. “Scientific experiments have proved that pheromones can cause sexual arousal or sexual revulsion.”

Mazie hated this whole concept. She even hated the word
Phero-mates
. It sounded like something you sprayed on crops.
“Abner
—
y’all go squirt them turnips with Phero-mate afore the worms take hold!”

“All right, boys and girls—when you find a smell-tastic shirt, bring it up front, hold up the lucky number in front of our video cam, and wait to be claimed by your Prince or Princess Charming,” Kandace instructed. “Remember to return the shirt to the table when you’re finished. Okay—ready, set,
sniff
!”

Mazie picked up a bag at random. Number 48. She opened it and inhaled, then nearly gagged. Her nasal receptors felt as though they’d been scoured out with drain cleaner. Had this guy been sleeping with wolverines? Hastily resealing the bag, Mazie thrust it back in the pile and cautiously reached for another bag. She wished she’d stayed home to zap gnomes and wondered whether Labeck had taken his stupid fish when he left because she didn’t want to come home to an apartment that smelled like badass bass.

Number 16: Raw onions. Yuck.

Number 82: Pizza and beer. Plus there was a taco stain in the nipple area.

Number 5: Pot fumes. Whoa!

She checked the giant video screen in case some guy had picked her T-shirt, number 76.

Nope—but Juju’s shirt had already been picked a couple of times—she was carrying on conversations with two guys. Mazie sampled four more bags and was beginning to feel a little nauseated when she encountered one she liked. The Old Spice-y fragrance of 33. Her dad wore Old Spice and she associated it with comfort and security. The commercial came immediately to mind—the sexy sailor and the whistled tune that ended on a high C.

Oh, what the heck? It wasn’t as though she had to marry the guy. Clutching the bag, Mazie sidled toward the video camera. There was a line now, men and women waiting their turn to hold up their Phero-mate bags. Mazie’s heart gave a little jolt. The man currently standing in front of the camera, looking hopeful, was holding up 76—her bag.

Cautiously she approached him. He was small and nebbishy-looking, with receding sandy
hair and the kind of bow tie worn by guys in movies who turned out to be the serial killer. He looked nervous, his hopeful smile slipping as the seconds ticked away and no one came up to claim the bag. Mazie immediately felt sorry for him. She approached him and held out her hand. “Hi,” she said. “I’m number seventy-six. I’m Mazie.”